Red Void; Dark Skies – A Star Trek Fan Fiction
"Do you see those stars there? Immortality waits beyond. The Universe can swallow ships whole, to say nothing of the frailty of man. But press onward, always onward, with the stars in your blood and bones. Put your hand to the sky and seize it; take that sacred place. That's where I am going – there beyond the stars. Don't wait for me here. I'm already gone."
Unknown
The debris of the USS Sciolus was scattered about like white bones over churning black sands, quick to spiral into oblivion with little conception of time. It had been four hours since the deadly encounter, yet some sections of the ship still retained life support and hosted the dozen of survivors of the vessel. Decompression explosions sent hulks of broken metal into one another, sometimes breaking those fragile lifeboats and sending a spray of bodies into space, or other times just sending metal further into the drifts of endless sleep between sun and stars. She had fought back, but there was no final threshold spared. She died and slipped quietly into the desperate void of space.
Camlin Ross was lying on the floor of the shuttlecraft, his head bleeding heavily from a gash above his ear and his uniform still slung off of his left shoulder. The shuttle bay around him had been nearly torn to pieces, with the magnetic locks still keeping the shuttle held to the floor and the silence of space peering in from the gaping holes in the hull. The entire shuttle bay was just a floating tomb, lashed to one of the larger sections of the clutter. As he drifted in and out of consciousness, the world was nothing but a blur to him, coming in and out of his sight beyond the pulsing of the pain in his head. A few times, he sluggishly threw his hand across his communicator, calling for a medical team without even noticing the lack of response. All was deadly still, but in his head the wind was raging.
Camlin didn't know what happened. The only thing he remembered was what he was doing in the shuttle when the attack happened. Then he was thrown against the bulkhead. A red haze followed. However, because of the unnatural calm now set on the ship and the laughing holes in the hull of the Sciolus, he knew that the ship had been badly damaged, possibly destroyed. Unbeknownst to him, he was far more fortunate than most of the others in the crew, and incredibly so to those that were now suffering a cold or strangling death at the merciless calm of space. His sanctuary was mobile; it had engines, heaters and replicators. In fact, the only thought in his head now was get up and get the shuttle started. Whether it was to only save himself or to start picking up survivors, he didn't know, but all he wanted to do was turn the heat on and begin controlling his fate once more.
But he couldn't move. His body just wouldn't work. The blow to the head was certainly severe, but he also knew it wasn't the reason. Looking down to the injection device lying just beyond his twitching fingers, Camlin clenched his teeth and struggled, trying to move enough to get it out of his sight. The vile blue liquid was nearly gone out of the device, but he knew exactly where the rest was. Of course, he had always known the possibility of dying because of chronic use, but that was something for the future, long and far away. He hadn't seen it having such a pitiless sense of humor, timing a paralysis fit right in the middle of an attack and subsequent reeling through barren space in a sleeping savior. It was maddening to the point his breathing became strained and his eyes bulged, foam seeping out from the corner of his lips and the tendons in his hand stretched tight with the intense desire to simply hit a few buttons on the console and save himself. But that was not possible. Not much was possibly in a chemical hood. When the last of the air and heat seeped out of the sleeping spacecraft, he would die, only meters away from a three-button salvation. No Starfleet burial. No opening gates. He would just die – and all because he wanted a quick jaunt before his duty shift started.
Then, peeking through one of the holes in the hull, he saw an angel slowly slipping out of the blackness of space, like a vision of beauty in the face of admonishing terror. "She's so beautiful," he thought. A warming glow was radiating off of her body and two blurry wings split from her back, spreading out until he couldn't see their ends anymore. This saving angel lingered among the wreckage and stalled, with flashing eyes that snared his eyes and wouldn't allow him to look away. He couldn't really tell if it was real or not, or if the oxygen deprivation coupled with the Bile was finally taking him to whatever end truly waited the enlightened denizens of the 24th century. But whatever it was, he looked upon it with love and affection, for the coldness was defeated by its presence and it caused a warming light to surround him. Suddenly, a chorus began to fill his ears and the inside of the shuttle truly became bright, with a warmth that was pulling him, beckoning him to come out of the hulking corpse and fly with the angel – fly through the endless dunes of nebulae and galaxies to the very ends of existence and thought. This beautiful creature was soothing him, causing him to accept the loss of his life and bitter flaws that had constructed it; from his outstanding graduation from the academy and commission aboard a starship to the tears and fissures of a life torn open, filled with despair and emptiness due to his own brilliant incompetence. Yes, he would move out past the hull of the shuttle, past the jagged jaws of the material monstrosity and join with the angel, floating beautifully in the blackness of space. Peace took him. He felt saved. With the blue streaks still cracking the pallor of his eyes, Camlin drifted off, closing them and letting his ephemeral body feel the warmth and light, hear the sounds of singing voices and sense the movement of his soul stirring. Movement. Warmth. Song. He was going beyond. In that peace, he smiled and drifted away, waiting for pulsars and centaurs to welcome him into his final, peaceful resting place.
When the shuttle had finally powered up, the magnetic locks disengaged and jarred the vessel, its single occupant oblivious to the movement or destination. It took very careful flying to maneuver the shuttle through the hole in the side of the maimed shuttle bay, but soon it was in open space, radiating active systems and gliding smoothly among the rubble towards the ship waiting neatly beyond. Two unusual objects were prowling about the vicinity like guards, but everything else seemed dead and lifeless. When the shuttle was nearing the fantastically bizarre vessel, small objects were being launched out of a small bay towards the larger wreckage of the Sciolus, moving towards each of the life signs or those unfortunate survivors. Soon enough, the shuttle was landing in a bay on the ship, being piloted remotely and taking its unconscious companion right into the heart of this presumed savior. And as the shuttle was secured and the two unusual objects returned into open slots at the unusual ship's sides, the entire vessel cloaked out of sight and left the place a tomb, save for a collection of occupied life pods and single transmitting transponder. The Sciolus was left as a victim of a cold, vastspace heartless of reason and remittent of purpose.
Aboard the mystery ship, when the shuttle's door had opened and the occupant was revealed to be unconscious, a middle-aged stepped into the compartment, his grizzly beard and tired eyes defying the pristine innards of the Starfleet shuttle, but his human smile and his powerful hand beckoned the dreamer, welcoming him to the end of his life just as he had predicted just a short time ago.
"Lt. Commander Camlin Ross. Welcome aboard the Hattori."